Attorney General acknowledges lurking ‘crooked prosecutors’

Attorney General Basrief Arief acknowledged that “crooked prosecutors” who violated both regulations and ethics were still lurking in the profession.

Speaking on the sidelines of his official visit to South Sulawesi’s Higher Prosecutor’s Office in Makassar on Monday, Basrief pointed to the most recent incident in Batam, Riau Islands, where a prosecutor was arrested for allegedly blackmailing a suspect in a corruption case he was working on.

“This is, of course, very concerning for us all,” said Basrief.

He said his office was continually correcting and improving the performance and morality of his staffers, by toughening up on supervision by their superiors.

Once such prosecutors were revealed, he said, his office would investigate the seriousness of the violations committed. He said he needed to ensure they were held responsible for their violations.

Sanctions would be imposed according to the severity of the violations.

In response to the arrest of Batam prosecutor Jufrizal, Basrief said the investigation into his case was being conducted by the police.

His office has also reportedly assigned an official to examine the case.

An administrative sanction will be handed down if the prosecutor is found guilty.

Previously, two heads of prosecutor’s offices in South Sulawesi were dismissed from their posts for allegedly accepting bribes from graft suspects. They were Rahmat Harianto, head of the Sinjai Prosecutor’s Office and Ridwan Umar, head of the Takalar Prosecutor’s Office.

Separately, in Riau Islands, the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) expressed disappointment over the handling of what they called the “blackmailing prosecutor case” by the local police and prosecutor’s office.

They considered neither institution professional in handling the case, which they perceived as full of collusion, corruption and nepotism.

Chairman of FPI’s Riau Islands branch, Hazarullah Aswad, accused the police and prosecutor’s office of twisting the facts in the case.

Instead of continuing to process the case, he said, they summoned the blackmail victims — who happened to be FPI members — and tried to turn the case into an attempt to bribe the prosecutor by the FPI members.

“We are protesting against it. The case has been twisted from a blackmail case into a bribery case,” Hazarullah told a press conference.

The FPI and personnel from the Riau Islands Police caught Jufrizal, the prosecutor, red-handed on Wednesday evening in the act of receiving Rp 200 million in cash at a park in Batam. Apart from Jufrizal, three other prosecutors from the special crimes section of the Batam Prosecutor’s Office were present.

In a separate case in Bandung, West Java, it has been reported that the indictment against prosecutor Sistoyo, who is alleged to have received a bribe of Rp 100 million, is to be handed over to the corruption court soon.

“We will hand over the document this Thursday,” prosecutor Ketut Sumedana of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said in Bandung on Monday.

Apart from Sistoyo, who worked at the Cibinong Prosecutor’s Office, the KPK named two other suspects in the case, namely Edward M Bunyamin and Anton Bambang Hadiyono.

“They were caught red-handed,” Sumedana said.

— Arya Dipa and Fadli contributed to the reports from Bandung and Batam